I don't think the thing inside her is anything other than her own desires. I think the truth in this series has always been that while Utena does feel admiration towards the magical girls, her lust towards them has always been stronger, so trying to let admiration win and accept her defeat when she still has the chance to molest them would obviously end up like this. A team-up against her is entirely possible, but this series has always been very pro- Utena letting loose, so I'd be surprised if this new transformation is treated as being totally a bad thing, and I'd be SHOCKED if she ends up as less of a degenerate after this battle.

Yes, Yoshioka, you've got it right.

This is very cute. I like the tension and discomfort that the power imbalance creates.

last edited at Feb 3, 2022 7:58PM

What is it with anime girls and cockroaches? They're not even in the top ten scariest bugs imo.

This setup has a ton of comedy potential. I'm really excited to see where this goes. The whole "class S" setup is ripe for subversion and parody, and I can't wait to see our protagonists crash headlong into it.

You gotta wonder why the Magia Trio are chasing them at all. They do nothing to people. They just turn up, and the magical girls are immediately like "evildoers, we will destroy you".

It's kinda like they deserve the torture they get...

Like, they don't seem to even be smart enough to notice Baiser isn't killing them even though she has every opportunity to.

To be fair, her constantly molesting them is also reason enough for them to want to beat the crap out of her. Also, the mascots seem to have some deeper beef.

So Magenta's "trigger" is her friends? I guess that means Baiser-chan will have to kidnap them to use them against her. That's classic villain shit, she's really making progress. This chapter she even revealed that she's fully given up on the concept of a conscience, which might also be progress given that in chapter 21 she felt guilty about causing collateral damage, but that might've just been because she wasn't transformed that chapter and was also feeling guilty about what she did to Azul.

This story seems bizarre thematically. All of the characters are treating this situation as though the big moral question here is "do some people deserve to die?" which is a decent theme to base a story around. But shouldn't they first be questioning whether the president in particular deserves that power given that he's an obvious psycho who thinks schoolyard bullying deserves the death penalty? If he had actually been trying to kill someone as bad as Akira's dad the scenes with Akira and with the vice president would have felt more natural, but as it stands I just want to tear my hair out and scream at the characters because the entire premise of this "argument" is fucking stupid!

I just love that Rei doesn't care, I precisely read romance to escape IRL politics, so I hope she just keeps ignoring it.

In the light novel it's more explicit that she's just holding her tongue here. If you're looking for an apolitical manga jump ship now lmao.